World of Love #1 - Purpose of Creation

God's motivation for creating the world sheds light on our own life goals.

The question is both very simple, and yet, at the same time, involves some of the most sublime mysteries. For the truth is that we do not have the power to understand God, and just as we cannot understand Him, so can we not understand His reasons. But [even] if we cannot understand God, we can try to understand the world, and ask why it exists. We can look and see what God Himself has taught us about the purpose of creation, both in the Bible and in our traditions.

As our sages teach us, there is absolutely nothing positive that we can say about God Himself. He exists -- and we can say no more. But we can speak of His relationship with His world.

Goodness and love are God's two most basic qualities.

One of the main things that we can say about God in this manner is that He is good. Not only do we say that God is good, but also that He defines good. Every act of God contains the most pure and infinite Good that can exist. His goodness and love are the two most basic of God's qualities as far as we can understand, and they work together to bring about His purpose. The Psalmist sings of this and says, "God is good to all, His love rests on all His deeds" (Psalms 145:9).

God has absolutely no need to create the world. God Himself is absolute perfection, and has no need for anything, even creation. When He created the world, He therefore performed the most perfect possible act of altruism and love. No matter how selfless a human act may be, there is always some benefit to the doer, even if it is nothing more than a degree of self-satisfaction.

But God, on the other hand, has no needs or wants, and therefore, there was nothing about Him that creation could satisfy. It was therefore the most perfect possible act of love. The Psalmist again speaks of this and says, "I have said: ‘The world is built of love'" (Psalms 89:1).

We say that God is good because He acts in love. Neither His good nor His love are in any way limited. There is an often-repeated chant that speaks of both God's goodness and His love. It goes, "Give thanks to God, His love is infinite" (Psalms 136:1).

God was under absolutely no compulsion to create the world. We therefore call His creation an act of pure and infinite love. The litany thus continues (Psalms 136:5-9):

He made the heavens with wisdom

His love is infinite.

Set the earth on the waters

His love is infinite.

He makes the great lights

His love is infinite.

The sun to rule the day

His love is infinite.

The moon and stars by night

His love is infinite.

The Baal Shem Tov explains this in a somewhat deeper manner. We know that God knows the future just as He knows the past. Therefore, even before creation, God knew of mankind. And just as He knew man, He loved man. It was this love of generations yet unborn that brought God to create the universe. God saw the good people of every generation, and His love for them served as a focus for creation. Our sages thus teach us that God perceived the deeds of the righteous before creating the world. He therefore told us through His prophet, "With an infinite world of love have I loved you, therefore, I have drawn you to Me with affection" (Jeremiah 31:3).

It was love of generations yet unborn that brought God to create the universe.

God Himself calls His creation an act of goodness. It is for this reason that at the end of creation the Torah says, "And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good" (Genesis 1:35). What God is telling us in the Torah is that creation is an expression of His good.

The Talmud (Brachot 60a) tells us a story that expresses this most graphically:

Rabbi Akiva was once traveling. With him, he had a donkey, a rooster, and a torch. He came to a city and sought lodging, but they would not let him stay for the night. Rabbi Akiva did not complain. He merely remarked, "All that God does is for the good."

Having no other choice, he camped in a field. During the night, a lion came and killed his donkey. Later, a cat came and ate his rooster. Finally, a wind came and extinguished his torch. Again, he said, "All that God does is for the good."

In the morning, Rabbi Akiva walked back to the city where he had sought to spend the night. He found the city sacked and all its inhabitants killed. If he would have spent the night there, he would have been among the dead. If the Romans would have heard his donkey bray, or his rooster crow, or if they would have seen his torch, they would have found him and killed him. Realizing all this, he exclaimed, "Have I not said that all God does if for the good."

What Rabbi Akiva is teaching us is that everything that God does is ultimately good. There are things that may seem to contradict this. There are things that may seem to be bad and evil. But ultimately, everything comes from good and will end up as good. If we have the patience, we will see that everything in the world is ultimately good.

Everything in creation is part of God's plan. God's plan is the ultimate good. The wise Solomon thus teaches us, "God made everything for His purpose, even the wicked for the day of evil" (Proverbs 16:4). The Talmud (Yoma 38a) comments on this, saying, "Everything that God created in His world, He created for His glory."

Of course, there is a limit beyond which we cannot ask. We cannot ultimately understand God's motive in creation, any more than we can understand anything else about His being. Ultimately, He created for His own purpose, unknown to any being other than Himself. The final statement that we must make is that God created the world for His own reasons, or in the words of His prophet, "Everything that is called by My name, for My glory, I created, formed and made it" (Isaiah 43:7). When God speaks of His glory, He means that it was for Himself -- for His own reason, beyond all human comprehension. With relation to ourselves, we call God's motives "good." But in relation to God Himself, it is totally beyond our understanding.

But God had a plan for the world, and this plan was ultimate Good. The expression of this plan was the Torah, and as such, it served as the blueprint for all creation. Thus, God Himself calls the Torah good, as He told the wise Solomon, "I have given you a good thing, do not forsake My Torah" (Proverbs 4:2). Our sages explain that this means that the Torah is God's ultimate plan of good for the world, and say, "There is no good other than Torah."

Once God made His plan to do good, He then had to make a world to receive it.

It was this plan that ultimately led God to create the world. Good cannot be given unless there is someone to receive it. There is a Midrash that expresses this quite clearly, teaching us that God asked the Torah if He should create the universe. The Torah replied, "If the King has no camp, then over what is He a King?"

What this Midrash is teaching us is that once God had created the Torah, then it could tell Him to create a world. This means that once God had made His plan to do good, then He had to make a world to receive it. In a sense, we can say that God was drawn to create the world by His own plan. The plan itself could "tell" God, "There is no King without a kingdom," as the scripture itself echoes (Proverbs 14:8), "In a multitude of people is a King's glory."

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About the Author

Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan was a multi-faceted, prolific exponent of Jewish thought -- skilled in both Kabbalah and Jewish law, as well as the natural sciences (he was listed in "Who’s Who in Physics"). He suffered an untimely death at age 48.

The opinions expressed in the comment section are the personal views of the commenters. Comments are moderated, so please keep it civil.

Visitor Comments: 2

(2)
William Walter,
November 16, 2001 12:00 AM

Stories have their limitations.

It is always a joy to read anything from R. Kaplan. The story of Rabbi Akiva is powerful and apt - but one cannot help but think that it was a bit hard on the donkey and the rooster. O.K. so they were animals in the service of man. But what about the people of the city? Were they evil? - apart from not being hospitable to the tzaddik?

(1)
Hazel Crowley,
November 11, 2001 12:00 AM

Great

This is a wonderful article. The more I try to tap the resources of G-d I feel that I know nothing about Him except that "He works all things together for good to those who love Him." It is good to know that all of life does not rest in our hands.

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I’m wondering what happened to the House of David. After the end of the Kingdom of Judah was there any memory what happened to King David’s descendants? Is there any family today which can trace its lineage to David – and whom the Messiah might descend from?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Thank you for your good question. There is no question that King David’s descendants are alive today. God promised David through Nathan the Prophet that the monarchy would never depart from his family (II Samuel 7:16). The prophets likewise foretell the ultimate coming of the Messiah, descendant of David, the “branch which will extend from the trunk of Jesse,” who will restore the Davidic dynasty and Israel’s sovereignty (Isaiah 11:1, see also Jeremiah 33:15, Ezekiel 37:25).

King David’s initial dynasty came to an end with the destruction of the First Temple and the Babylonian Exile. In an earlier expulsion King Jehoiachin was exiled by Nebuchadnezzar, together with his family and several thousand of the Torah scholars and higher classes (II Kings 24:14-16). Eleven years later the Temple was destroyed. The final king of Judah, Jehoiachin’s uncle Zedekiah, was too exiled to Babylonia. He was blinded and his children were executed (II Kings 25:7).

However, Jehoiachin and his descendants did survive in exile. Babylonian cuneiform records actually attest to Jehoiachin and his family receiving food rations from the government. I Chronicles 3:17:24 likewise lists several generations of his descendants (either 9 or 15 generations, depending on the precise interpretation of the verses), which would have extended well into the Second Temple era. (One was the notable Zerubbabel, grandson of Jehoiachin, who was one of the leaders of the return to Zion and the construction the Second Temple.)

In Babylonia, the leader of the Jewish community was known as the Reish Galuta (Aramaic for “head of the exile,” called the Exilarch in English). This was a hereditary position recognized by the Babylonian government. Its bearer was generally quite wealthy and powerful, well-connected to the government and wielding much authority over Babylonian Jewry.

According to Jewish tradition, the Exilarch was a direct descendant of Jehoiachin. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 5a) understands Genesis 49:10 – Jacob’s blessing to Judah that “the staff would not be removed from Judah” – as a reference to the Exilarchs in Babylonia, “who would chastise Israel with the staff,” i.e., who exercised temporal authority over the Jewish community. It stands to reason that these descendants of Judah were descendants of David’s house, who would have naturally been the leaders of the Babylonian community, in fulfillment of God’s promise to David that authority would always rest in his descendants.

There is also a chronological work, Seder Olam Zutta (an anonymous text from the early Middle Ages), which lists 39 generations of Exilarchs beginning with Jehoiachin. One of the commentators to Chronicles, the Vilna Gaon, states that the first one was Elionai of I Chronicles 3:23.

The position of Exilarch lasted for many centuries. The Reish Galuta is mentioned quite often in the Talmud. As can be expected, some were quite learned themselves, some deferred to the rabbis for religious matters, while some, especially in the later years, fought them and their authority tooth and nail.

Exilarchs existed well into the Middle Ages, throughout the period of the early medieval scholars known as the Gaonim. The last ones known to history was Hezekiah, who was killed in 1040 by the Babylonian authorities, although he was believed to have had sons who escaped to Iberia. There are likewise later historical references to descendants of the Exilarchs, especially in northern Spain (Catelonia) and southern France (Provence).

Beyond that, there is no concrete evidence as to the whereabouts of King David’s descendants. Supposedly, the great French medieval sage Rashi (R. Shlomo Yitzchaki) traced his lineage to King David, although on a maternal line. (In addition, Rashi himself had only daughters.) The same is said of Rabbi Yehuda Loewe of Prague (the Maharal). Since Ashkenazi Jews are so interrelated, this is a tradition, however dubious today, shared by many Ashkenazi Jews.

In any event, we do not need be concerned today how the Messiah son of David will be identified. He will be a prophet, second only to Moses. God Himself will select him and appoint him to his task. And he himself, with his Divine inspiration, will resolve all other matters of Jewish lineage (Maimonides Hilchot Melachim 12:3).

Yahrtzeit of Kalonymus Z. Wissotzky, a famous Russian Jewish philanthropist who died in 1904. Wissotzky once owned the tea concession for the Czar's entire military operation. Since the Czar's soldiers numbered in the millions and tea drinking was a daily Russian custom, this concession made Wissotzky very rich. One day, Wissotzky was approached by the World Zionist Organization to begin a tea business in Israel. He laughed at this preposterous idea: the market was small, the Turkish bureaucracy was strict, and tea leaves from India were too costly to import. Jewish leaders persisted, and Wissotzky started a small tea company in Israel. After his death, the tea company passed to his heirs. Then in 1917, the communists swept to power in Russia, seizing all of the Wissotzky company's assets. The only business left in their possession was the small tea company in Israel. The family fled Russia, built the Israeli business, and today Wissotzky is a leading brand of tea in Israel, with exports to countries worldwide -- including Russia.

Building by youth may be destructive, while when elders dismantle, it is constructive (Nedarim 40a).

It seems paradoxical, but it is true. We make the most important decisions of our lives when we are young and inexperienced, and our maximum wisdom comes at an age when our lives are essentially behind us, and no decisions of great moment remain to be made.

While the solution to this mystery eludes us, the facts are evident, and we would be wise to adapt to them. When we are young and inexperienced, we can ask our elders for their opinion and then benefit from their wisdom. When their advice does not coincide with what we think is best, we would do ourselves a great service if we deferred to their counsel.

It may not be popular to champion this concept. Although we have emerged from the era of the `60s, when accepting the opinion of anyone over thirty was anathema, the attitude of dismissing older people as antiquated and obsolete has-beens who lack the omniscience of computerized intelligence still lingers on.

Those who refuse to learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them. We would do well to swallow our youthful pride and benefit from the teachings of the school of experience.

Today I shall...

seek advice from my elders and give more serious consideration to deferring to their advice when it conflicts with my desires.

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